Iraqis regain villages on push toward Mosul

Kurdish forces hold a position Monday overlooking villages outside the northern Iraqi city of Mosul during an operation with Iraqi soldiers to retake the territory.
Kurdish forces hold a position Monday overlooking villages outside the northern Iraqi city of Mosul during an operation with Iraqi soldiers to retake the territory.

ASQUF, Iraq -- A force comprising thousands of Kurdish and Iraqi army soldiers wrested territory from the Islamic State outside the northern city of Mosul on Monday, facing occasionally fierce resistance at the start of a long-promised offensive to dislodge the extremists from their main stronghold in Iraq.

Kurdish forces moved to take a string of villages east of the city while Iraqi army and police units made a push from the south, a rare display of coordination and harmony between rival forces that officials hailed as a significant victory in itself.

By the end of the day, Kurdish forces had retaken some 80 square miles, according to the president of Iraq's Kurdistan region. Peshmerga commanders on the ground estimated the offensive retook nine villages and pushed the front line with the Islamic State back 5 miles.

But the forces' hold appeared fragile and the gains largely symbolic. Some of the villages were so small they comprised no more than a few dozen homes, and most were abandoned.

And though some troops were less than 20 miles from Mosul's edges, it was unclear how long it would take to reach the city itself, where more than 1 million people still live.

Announced before dawn in a televised address by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the battle is the most ambitious offensive begun by Iraq's security forces since they were created after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. As the sun rose and warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition circled overhead, Kurdish peshmerga soldiers rode armored vehicles, land movers and even motorcycles on dirt roads toward front lines that seemed to advance by the hour.

"This is a historic day," Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, said at a news conference Monday evening in which he hailed the unity and shared sacrifice of the combined forces in their first major test.

"We have achieved a lot of success so far," he said.

If successful, the liberation of the city would be the biggest blow yet to the Islamic State group. After a string of victories by Iraqi ground forces over the past year, the Islamic State now controls less than half the territory it once held, and al-Abadi has pledged the fight for Mosul will lead to the liberation of all Iraqi territory from the militants this year.

The disparate forces pushing to play a role in Mosul's liberation -- peshmerga, Sunni tribal fighters, Iranian-backed Shiite militias and government units supported by the United States -- have underscored the collective sense of trauma and anger in Iraq as the city has suffered under the reign of the Islamic State since it stormed Mosul early in the summer of 2014.

Despite often competing agendas, some of the forces have united to take back the militant group's most prized remaining territory in the country.

The repeated delays in mounting an offensive on Mosul have been attributed to the special challenges posed by the city, because of ethnic sensitivities and its sheer size.

Military planners have also puzzled over how fiercely the Islamic State would fight to defend Mosul, the most populous city the militant group controls. Over the past two years, residents have spoken about the harsh strictures imposed by the militants, including executions and public floggings, but also the sophisticated fortifications, including trenches, the Islamic State has built to repel any outside attack.

Monday's battle suggested that the militants would fight to hold their ground -- but also that their ability to do so may increasingly be in doubt.

Gaining ground

Dozens of peshmerga fighters gathered early Monday in staging areas about 30 miles from Mosul, loading ammunition and supplies into Humvees and other armored vehicles. The soldiers spoke confidently about their mission -- to capture villages east of Mosul and near the town of Bartella as warplanes with a United States-led coalition carried out airstrikes on Islamic State-held territory nearby.

"We are feeling great. It won't take more than a day and a half," said Maj. Bahram Bahjat, a peshmerga commander. He was far less confident, though, about the possibility of liberating Mosul itself, predicting it would take months and be a "bloody battle."

Armored columns barreled down roads toward villages obscured by smoke from fires set by the militants. Mortar rounds landed near peshmerga engineers building dirt fortifications, but they continued their work. A suicide car bomb was struck before it could complete an attack, according to Maj. Shivan Ihsan Saleh, pointing at a towering plume of smoke from a nearby hill.

Kurdish officials refused to comment on casualties. Medics near the front lines said Monday morning that at least one soldier was killed and two were injured in the fighting around Bartella.

The Islamic State-run news agency, Aamaq, said the group carried out eight suicide attacks against Kurdish forces and destroyed two Humvees belonging to the Kurdish forces and Shiite militias east of the city.

Separate from the Kurdish gains, the Iraqi military said more than a dozen villages were captured between the area of Gwer and the south of the city, while two others were seized by police and army forces as they advanced from Qayyarah air base, about 35 miles south of Mosul. The base is the main logistical hub for the Iraqi government's operation.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Iraqi forces were doing better than expected.

"Early indications are that Iraqi forces have met their objectives so far and that they are ahead of schedule for this first day," Cook told reporters at the Pentagon. He said they had reached their first-day objectives around midday.

"This is going according to the Iraqi plan, but again, it's early and the enemy gets a vote here," he said. Some 3,000 to 5,000 Islamic State fighters were estimated to remain within Mosul, Cook said.

U.S. officials say that American troops, who number more than 5,000 in Iraq, are helping to coordinate logistics, conduct planning and oversee the air campaign, while a smaller number are expected to move forward with Iraqi forces as they advance on Mosul.

'Willing to compromise'

But there are fears that any alliances will only be temporary because of competing interests in and around Mosul, an area rich with ethnic and religious differences as well as oil. Iraqi and U.S. officials have sought to build up a sense of momentum around the battle for Mosul, partly out of concern that rivalries will rise to the fore and hamper the military effort.

In a political deal between the country's Kurdish region and the central government, it was agreed that Kurdish forces would advance first, bringing the villages they retake under their regional control, according to Iraqi special forces Lt. Col. Ali Hussein.

Once the Kurdish forces advance far enough, the Iraqi special forces will move to the new front and pick up the fight.

Saud Masoud, a soldier with Iraq's special forces, watched the front line on the horizon Monday while waiting for orders to advance. Originally from the Christian village of Bartella, he said he didn't want his hometown to become part of the country's Kurdistan region, but he understood why Iraqi leaders struck the deal.

"People are tired of the situation, very tired honestly, so everyone including myself is willing to compromise," he said.

The operation so far hasn't run into what is expected to be one of its most significant obstacles: Mosul's civilian population of more than a million people. The United Nations said Monday that the largest wave of displaced people is expected to begin next week as Iraqi forces enter territory where thousands are living, and Iraqi officials are hastily erecting encampments for fleeing residents.

The political and security crisis triggered by the fall of Mosul also contributed to the rise in power of armed groups only loosely controlled by the central government. Some Iraqi politicians have warned that violence could break out between groups that once had a common enemy.

The role of Shiite militia forces in the Mosul operation has been particularly sensitive, as the groups have been accused of carrying out abuses against civilians in other mostly Sunni parts of Iraq.

At a front line southeast of Mosul, Kurdish peshmerga fighter Sarwat Faris said he believes that pushing the militants out of Mosul will make Iraq's north safer, but he doesn't believe it will bring peace to the country.

"Next, the fight will be between us and the [Shiite] militias," he said. "Maybe as soon as the new year, we will be fighting each other."

Information for this article was contributed by Loveday Morris, Kareem Fahim, Missy Ryan, Mustafa Salim and Aaso Ameen Shwan of The Washington Post; and by Susannah George, Adam Schreck, Ahmed Sami, Sinan Salaheddin, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Maamoun Youssef, Geir Moulson, Suzan Fraser and Vivian Salama of The Associated Press.

A Section on 10/18/2016

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